Friday Two Cents: Citizenship Quiz

This past week I saw something that made me stop and take notice. It has to do with the state of Arizona making its high school students take a mandatory citizenship test as part of their requirements for graduation from high school.

There are many people on both sides of the argument for this interesting addition to the curriculum. The state politicians argued the that many of these young people will be entrusted with the future of the country’s political landscape from serving in government to exercising their duty by voting. This test will help them be a more informed citizen.

Some argued that the students already have a lot of tests they must complete to graduate so why add another one. Another argument says why should there be a test on memorization, why not a test that actually stimulates the students on independent thought. Some educators say that this is a waste of valuable classroom time of a test that is, in essence, very easy.

I for one see that both arguments have merit. Yes there is a lot of testing that the students need to do to graduate yet if you think about it many of the questions can be covered in other classes. Yet with the argument that the test is easy, I refer to a 2011 study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. After surveying over 1400 adults it found that …

When asked, 36% could name the three levels of the US government, where 35% could not name a single one.

When asked, 38% correctly said that the Republicans have the most members in the House of Representatives, but 17% said the Democrats and 44% said they did not know.

When asked, 38% correctly said that the Democrats have the most members in the Senate but 20% said the Republicans and 42% said they did not know.

Clearly this study shows that among regular American citizens, the citizenship test questions are not that easy.

I look at this study and at this legislation to change the curriculum and I have to agree that with adding a citizen test to the requirements for graduation. I would love to see a similar test be a requirement in Canada as well. I do not need to quote studies or the fact that only 68.3% of eligible voters actually voted in the last federal election. I have first hand experience on how much people do not know about Canada. I took a Canadian Issues course in university and out of a starting class size of 60 students we finished the course with 45. Many I talked to said that they dropped the course because they had no idea of the Canadian issue presented in the course. The topics ranged from government (elections and the make up of government), general history, indigenous people topics, global issues (that relate to Canada) and peacekeeping/Nato. Topics every Canadian should be aware of, yet 25% of the class had no idea of these topics.

I think all Canadian citizens should be aware of the issues that face our country and know how the election and how government works. If you are a Canadian and interested in testing yourself, I am adding a link to a Canadian Citizenship test site below. The site is CitizenshipCounts.ca and is a project of OCASI and was funded by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. I took the test and I am proud to say I got 100% on the quiz of 30 questions. Let’s see if you can match me.

About Me

Born and raised in Toronto Canada, I am a certified Elementary teacher working at a school board with children from kindergarten to grade 5. The one thing you should know about me is that I love all art forms but especially drawing, writing and music.

I discovered that when I inspire others, they in turn inspire me. This wonderful realization is the inspiration in creating this blog. My creativity comes from the people around me. Hopefully, I can inspire others as they have inspired me.
I try and post everyTuesday and Friday along the following themes:

Tuesday – I will try to post some of my art or that of the children’s
Friday “Friday Two Cents” – I will try to post my opinion, or my two cents, on something that happened in the news or to me during the week.

But watch out during the other days of the week just in case. If I find something Inspiring, Interesting or Creative, I will do my best to share it